Saturday, January 31, 2015

I love minimalist living

After a lot of fiddling around with politics and other topics, here is a classical minimalism post.

Pick up every single item you own and ask yourself: Can I be happy without it? If the answer is yes and you want to be happy, then why do you own it? Remember that happiness is not a destination. You can travel to Rome by plane, but you might as well go there by foot (if you live in Europe). There is no reason not to take a vehicle that gets you there faster. But with happiness it's an entirely different situation. It's not a goal. Certain things don't get you "closer" to happiness. So if you don't need them to be happy, then owning them is completely irrelevant in this regard.

So what it comes down to is clothing, food and a roof over one's head. Sorry, it's as simple as that.We may need special items to carry out our work, which in turn provides the above. But all the fancy stuff we keep in our houses are basically toys. It's not wrong to have them per se. Yet we should keep in mind that we don't need them.

The reason for doing this is that you create space (in your mind and in your place) for what truly makes you happy. Among a lot of virtues that differ from person to person, it's essentially just one: Love.

2 comments:

  1. Nice to read more about minimalism. On that note today I've sorted through my wardrobe and made a huge pile of clothes which I haven't been wearing for ages...some of which I don't even remeber owning. I am so happy now to have more space in my closet and that I can donate clothes for people who need them more than I do.

    But on the contrary "throwing" things out is still sometimes hard, even though I've had a lot of practice lately. I still catch myself thinking..."You might need this shirt next month, year, some event". But the thing is if I haven't used it in the last year, I'll most likely not use it in the following.

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  2. To practice minimalist living, this mantra has to be repeated consciously (at least for me) "It's not wrong to have them per se. Yet we should keep in mind that we don't need them." too often people forget that when they see the next shiny pretty thing!

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